Visiting the Golden Fort of Jaisalmer

In Jaisalmer we visited the Golden Fort, because to be honest, apart from that, there is nothing much to see. And that is what is so amazing about this isolated place, lost in the Thar desert, a few miles away from the Pakistani border.

In Jaisalmer we saw Indians selling British wine and German bakery items. It stirred up our curiosity as we asked for more information: it is actually domestic wine, produced in the Nasik valley not far from Bombay, but for Indians, the concept of wine is British. As far as German bakery is concerned, I stopped my research after the banana pancake which happened to be a French crêpe, slightly thicker, with a bit of Nutella (“Finding Nutella in the middle of the desert ? Possible!”). Along the same lines we were (almost) tempted by trying a chocolate lassi. So exotic!

In three different restaurants we saw the same menu card three times. We couldn’t help but ask them about it and yes, they designed it together! We found ourselves reassured.

We saw Indians overwhelmed by the extreme heat, we thought that by the time they would have got used to it. We saw tourists wearing shorts and spaghetti tops. Tons of French and Israeli tourists. Some of them were very friendly. We saw as many cows as tourists and even more flies!

We visited end of March and a few weeks after that the fort would close, it would be too hot (about 55 degrees celsius) and shop owners would return to their home village in the desert for a few months while waiting for the moonsoon to come and for another touristic season to begin at fall.

In Jaisalmer I even came accross a guy who refused to buy a bottle of water before spending a night in the desert…but that’s another story!